Class: A Guide Through the American Status System | 
| Author: Paul Fussell
Publisher: Touchstone
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  122 reviews
Sales Rank: 10989
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 12 x 5.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 0671792253
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.50973
EAN: 9780671792251
ASIN: 0671792253
Publication Date: October 1, 1992
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Product Description
In Class Paul Fussell explodes the sacred American myth of social equality with eagle-eyed irreverence and iconoclastic wit. This bestselling, superbly researched, exquisitely observed guide to the signs, symbols, and customs of the American class system is always outrageously on the mark as Fussell shows us how our status is revealed by everything we do, say, and own. He describes the houses, objects, artifacts, speech, clothing styles, and intellectual proclivities of American classes from the top to the bottom and everybody -- you'll surely recognize yourself -- in between. Class is guaranteed to amuse and infuriate, whether your class is so high it's out of sight (literally) or you are, alas, a sinking victim of prole drift.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 117 more reviews...
 Guaranteed to ruffle feathers October 2, 2008
I have owned two copies of this hilarious book for many years and have loaned them out to innumerable folks. Without fail when the person returns it to me they say yeah, it was funny, and mostly accurate, but I don't necessarily agree with the part about such-and-such. And then also without fail this person then admits after a little prodding that they actually DO the such-and-such that they believe should have been omitted from the book.
 Gee-wiz ! America is not a classless society ? August 27, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read Paul Fussell's Class in 1983, shortly after its publication. Class
is easy to read and is funny, but in a very biting sort of way. Now, 25
years later, with a political campaign being waged, we see much the same thing for those who are aware of class, or are just too broke to be satisfied with their place in American society.
Note how the politicians like to condemn "elitism" and publically identify themselves with the middle-class and even working-class to appeal to voters.
Note how our first black major party candidate for president is both praised for his achievements and also condemned as being an elitist snob - both Obamas are.
In the primaries, Hillary Clinton (a very Upper-middleclass person)
presented herself as a struggling working-class woman in the blue-collar
areas of Pennsylvania. People tend to want to be upwardly mobile, as they conceive it, on the one hand, and are also envious and hateful toward those they see above and beyond them. And we will condtinue to see
this in the election this fall and Not for the first time of course.
Paul Fussell should be a public commentator on this issue, but I can see
why those-who-rule (out of sight and mind) would not like that.
The latest gulf war has demonstrated class devisions in ways that cannot
be hidden. There is a warrior-class (except some officers) who enlist
in the military for benefits and some sort of security, and then there
are "the rest of us" who need not worry about military service due to our
more or less secure financial situations.
The "proles" go to Iraq, but those who send them there (the ruling class) with few exceptions do not.
Note how class-oriented patriotism is - Pro Americanism (pro-gun, anti-
abortion, pro-religion, pro-military) tends to be of a very low-taste, lower-middle-class, "prolish" appeal. People who tend to be patriotic and
are proud of being American (and perhaps being white as well) are more
likey to have those attitudes because their overall socio-economic situation is very insecure. There is also nothing new in this, ofcourse,
but our election campaigns tend to highlight it. Here we go again....
 A dated, trite & slightly amusing outline of consumer spending habits by class, c.1983 April 22, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The bulk of this book is dedicated to consumer spending habits and while much has changed over the last 25 years (original copyright of 1983), there is a considerable amount that has stayed the same. There are some nuggets, but they are few and far between.
It is a light and fluffy distraction easily dispensed with in an afternoon. Those with a serious sociological interest would be far more satisfied with the work of Mills.
Just be sure to get it from the library, your bookshelves would not be complimented by it's presence.
Harrumph! February 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Paul Fussell can write--he wrote the very amusing book, "BAD, or, the Dumbing of America". He also has a poisoned pen and a keen eye for the absurd. For those, like me, who enjoy such cynical darts at the holy cows of society, there is something quite refreshing, and amusing, in Fussell's unabahsed elitism: he really *does* believe everyone who disagrees with him is an idiot... and tries his darnest to prove it, with more success than one would imagine.
The problem is that this attitude, while making Fussell very good at finding absurd things in our society (as in his book "BAD"), is a poor basis for disapassionate, objective social analysis. This makes his book, while amusing, rather worthless as a serious sociological study.
Fussell believes society is divided into nine classes (from "top-out-of-sight" to "bottom-out-of-sight"), all of which are more or less despicable... and an additional, "extra" class, "Class X", the only good people in America. Of course, the tiny "Class X", by a curious coincidence, includes mostly people like Fussell himself. In effect, Fussell is saying, "here are the nine classes of idiots which make up 99% of American society--that is, everybody except those who are like me". This is amusing as satire, but is obviously not serious social analysis.
So, read this book and enjoy Fussell's well-deserved skewering of the silly things people will do for social status (e.g., paying tons of money to live in a neighborhood with a posh name.) Fussell has a veritable gift for such skewering. But don't take it as an objective study of American class structure.
Dated, but a true classic February 8, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I first read this 20 years ago. I lent the book out and never saw it again; I bought another copy...lent it out again...and sure enough it never came back. So I bought it again and here it stays. Put your preconceptions of what upper, middle, and low class is aside and read the TRUTH about class in the United States of America. Fussell abuses just about everyone, but particularly the middle class, and those ever striving to achieve middle classness. Proles low and high and the "upper" class also take it - merely subscribing to a "class" system takes you down several notches in Fussell's keen eye. A brilliant but dated book, it helps to have lived through the 70s and 80s...I'd love to see a new and updated edition but doubt that Fussell, now 83, will grant me this.
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